Ten years after the Seven fell, their sons marched on Thebes again — Alcmaeon and Amphilochus leading the Epigoni to victory at Glisas, Laodamas slain or fled, and Thersander son of Polynices set upon the throne until Troy claimed him too.1
The second muster
When the Epigoni were grown, Alcmaeon son of Amphiaraus and Amphilochus his brother asked the oracle whether they should avenge their fathers. Apollo answered that they would conquer when they had a leader; they chose Alcmaeon, and Adrastus who alone of the Seven had survived sailed with them from Argos.2
Battle at Glisas
The Epigoni met the Thebans at Glisas and broke them. Aegialeus son of Adrastus fell in the fighting — the only Epigon slain — while Laodamas son of Eteocles was killed by Alcmaeon, or in another telling led the survivors away by night to the Encheleans in Illyria.3
Thersander king
The Argives dismantled the lower town of Thebes and set Thersander son of Polynices upon the throne. Pausanias saw the tomb of Aegialeus at Pegae and the memorials of the Epigoni at Thebes; when the Trojan War came, Thersander sailed with the host but was cut down at Mysia by Telephus before ever they reached Ilion.4
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
The Erinyes Drive Alcmaeon from the Corpse of Eriphyle
Henry Fuseli, 1821
Kunsthaus Zürich: Fuseli seizes the Epigoni captain's aftermath — Alcmaeon flees Eriphyle's corpse as the Erinyes swarm, the necklace-revenge that avenges Amphiaraus and pollutes the second Theban war's leader.
Alcmaeon Killing His Mother Eriphyle
Unknown Roman wall-painter, 1st century AD
Pompeian fresco (Naples): Alcmaeon strikes down the mother who sold Amphiaraus into the Seven — the matricide that binds the Epigoni generation to Orestes' kind of pollution.
Eriphyle Suckling Alcmaeon, with Amphiaraus
Unknown Attic red-figure painter, c. 450 BC
Attic hydria: Amphiaraus leans on his staff while Eriphyle suckles infant Alcmaeon — domestic calm before the necklace, the Seven's failure, and the sons' return.
The Erinyes beside the Body of Eriphyle
Henry Fuseli, 1821
Fuseli's pendant treatment: the Furies crowd Eriphyle's corpse as Alcmaeon is driven into exile — Romantic tragedy fixing the Epigoni matricide as the cycle's second Orestes.
In play
Epigoni (epic)
The lost cyclic sequel to the Thebaid — the sons of the Seven take Thebes at last, and only a line or two of the old poem survives.
Epigoni
Alcmaeon, Diomedes, and the second Argive generation — the revenge war that closes the Theban cycle before Troy.
Theban Cycle
The Epigoni sit in the cycle between the Seven's failure and the Trojan generation — Cadmus' city falling twice in epic memory.
Thebaid
Statius
Statius' Latin epic ends with the Seven, but its Theban war remains the chief surviving frame for every later Epigoni retelling.